


In the Shadow of My Mother

by chancecraz



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 08:46:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14973464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chancecraz/pseuds/chancecraz
Summary: The Force can be kind, but most days it chooses not to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So from time to time, I get stuck when I'm writing Queens or Middle Game. And I will turn to Tumblr and ask for prompts to get the juices flowing. Shifting Sands started off as a Tumblr prompt, and so did Middle Game come to think of it. I got some *really* good ones this weekend though, and thought I would throw them up here, given the internet's history of Social Media companies being dissolved, and all your work disappearing. Most of them will be going into a story called "Tumblr Prompts", but this one, and another one, which is going up tomorrow are two-parters. Not beta'd. As always, hope you enjoy!
> 
> anonymous asked:  
> I wish you would write a fic where Scmi Skywalker time-travels to the future to find out what her family has become from her son going evil to her grandbabies separated like most slave families and Luke performing forced unpaid labor for "family"

Shmi’s hand gripped tighter on Luke’s. He had warned her, this child of her child. He had told her what her son had become. Of the name he now used. Of the atrocities committed.

She heard the whispers among the Rebels, of a terrifying threat known as Darth Vader. There were questions about if he was even human, or some monster this Emperor had created in a lab on Coruscant. Shmi’s heart had broken at the terrified rumors and whispered warnings, even as her mind rebelled at thinking that such a person could possibly be her Ani.

But to see him, to see this tall figure, cloaked head to toe in black, was to understand the Rebel’s terror. There was nothing human there, nothing soft or vulnerable. His playful eyes were hidden away, and everything on him, from the color of his armor to the heavy thud of his boots screamed “ _Fear me_.” This was her _son?_

“Young Skywalker,” he boomed, an artificial voice, over a rigid mask. “There is nowhere left for you to run. You belong to me now.”

Luke was his _son_ . And he was talking to the boy like he was a _thing_. Shmi let out a low moan of pain, and whispered “Ani?”

He shouldn’t have heard her. The noise of the battle, his troopers, flanking both his sides, yelling incomprehensible orders to each other, the screams of dying men surrounding them. All of that should have made that small word that escaped from her mouth impossible to hear.

But he did hear, because the figure froze. Luke drew in a sharp breath, as he too realized that Ani had seen her.

There was the longest pause, then a strangled ”What trick is this?” he demanded.

Luke, shaking with fear, but with defiance ringing in his voice, cried out “No trick. Only the Force.”

That mask, with those eerie lifeless eyes, never strayed from her direction even as he declared “Impossible. It is impossible. This is nothing but a ploy. ” This from her son who once dreamed of such wonderful things. Who held on to them, despite everything that his life tried to strip from him. Who had made her believe in such things as miracles? What had _happened?_

Shmi’s heart was close to breaking, as she looked at her son, and the ones surrounding him. “I thought it would be impossible for you to wrap yourself in chains and wear it like armor Ani,” Shmi said, “But it appears we were both mistaken.”  

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For persistent-bookworm-disease - who asked for "I’d really like to see what would happen if Shmi actually met Yoda while she had full knowledge of what happened to her son." Hope you like it.

Shmi watched where she put her feet as she followed Luke. Before she had done the impossible, she had spent all of her life in the desert. Since arriving here, in this time, she mostly traveled with the Alliance on large, space fairing cruisers. She wasn’t sure she trusted ground that was this wet all the time.

“It’s just a little further,” Luke said, and Shmi nodded, even though his back was to her. She had come to this strange world looking for answers. Now more than ever she needed to know what had happened to her son. It was only by luck and chance they had managed to escape him on Anthan Prime, although Luke attributed it to the Force.

Shmi didn’t understand the Force, she never had, but she thought it had more to do with the remnants of her son’s large heart, then anything else. But she allowed Luke his own conclusions.

They finally reached a little mud hut. There was a small creature sitting in front of it, chewing on a stick absently. He stared at Luke, and nodded his head “Return you have young Skywalker.”

“I said I would,” Luke's voice was respectful but tight with nerves. “I have questions Yoda.”

Yoda, this was Yoda? This was the head of the Jedi Order? Even Shmi had heard of him, flung out in the Outer Rim as she was. But she could pick him up and carry him with one hand.

Yoda’s eyes flicked to her, and his voice was light and mocking “Judge me by my size do you?”

Shmi nodded. The creature let out a mad little cackle “Honest you are. Find that often I do not.”

Shmi inclined her head “I spent most of my life having to keep my words to myself. Now that I have the freedom to do otherwise I will take it.”

Yoda hobbled over, leaning heavily on his stick, which Shmi realized now was a cane, pain written in every step. He stopped right in front of her. Shmi knew an unspoken invitation when she was offered one, and lowered herself to the ground, so he could look into her face. She made a point of sitting, not kneeling. There were manners, and then there was subservience.  Luke hesitated for a moment, then sat down next to her.

Yoda peered into her face. “Wondering who you are, I am?” he asked, small fingers gently tracing her face, as if that would give him answers. “Wondering why young Skywalker brought you here?” His free hand dropped, and he rapped his cane on the ground, frustrated “Also  wondering, why does the Force hide you from me?”

“I have no affinity with the Force,” Shmi protested. “So I shouldn’t be visible to you.”

Yoda snorted “In all living things, the Force is. An exception you are not.” His face softened, just a bit, and Shmi could see the remnants of the long-ago Jedi Master beneath his grief and madness. “Strong you are,” he said, “Once, to the temple, you would have gone.”

Shmi’s throat closed up around old secrets. “Seeing what happened to my son, I’m glad that was not fate’s plan for me.”

“Betrayed we were,” the old Jedi said.

“Yes,” Luke’s voice was nothing but sarcastic, “by Darth Vader.”

Yoda flinched, and his eyes dropped away from Shmi, “Yes,” he said.

“Who is my son,” Shmi said softly.

Those green eyes swung up to meet hers “Impossible,” Yoda breathed “Long gone you are. Felt Anakin’s pain over your death I did.”

Shmi’s eyes filled with tears. Luke had said her Ani had been there, but he didn’t know if that was the truth, or a lie told to him by Owen. Shmi had only known Owen for a year, before she found herself improbably thrown into the future. She could see the lines of the man he could grow into, that wasn’t necessarily who he might _become_. Shmi had no way of confirming the truth of what Luke was told. If she miraculously was returned to her own time, her death would be years into her future. But now, this sad old man had confirmed her worst nightmare. That Ani witnessed her death.

“I don’t understand the Force,” Shmi said softly, “All I know is that I sought shelter from a sandstorm in a cave I could have sworn had never been there before. And when the storm was over, I was on a planet I had never heard of.” She looked over at Luke, and gave him a grateful smile “And to find there the son of my son.” She caressed his cheek, still marveling at this gift in the midst of so much grief.  “I had hoped one day Ani would have children. I never thought I would get to meet them.”

Her hand fell away from Luke’s cheek, and she turned to Yoda, “It was a miracle I was with Ani as long as I was. And in the hopes that he would have a better life, I sent him away. But that is not what happened, is it Jedi Master Yoda?”

Yoda’s throat bobbed, and he shook his head. “No,” he whispered.

Shmi felt the tears fall down her cheeks “Is Darth Vader my son?” She wasn’t sure why she was asking. Vader had _recognized_ her. Ani had only returned to Tatooine once, and with a woman, not another Jedi. If Vader had been his friend and betrayed him, why would he even know what Shmi looked like? Why had Vader denied her existence even more vehemently then Yoda had if he was not her Ani? But she hoped, oh how she hoped, that Vader was simply lost in madness, and not speaking the truth.

Yoda’s eyes filled with regret and failure “Your son he is,” he said mournfully.

Beside her, Luke slumped as if this blow was simply too much. He had grown up free. Poor, which was its own kind of prison, but there was no one he was obliged to call Master. But he had never felt the lash of the whip, never had to steel himself against the agony of moving to fulfill impossible tasks, because you knew that the alternative was worse. Watto had been a kind master, as those things went, but Watto hadn't always owned Shmi.

There was pain, but her voice was steady as she asked “What happened?”

Those long ears flicked back and forth “Fell to the Dark Side he did.”

Her tears were still flowing freely, but she was still coherent enough to say “That isn’t an answer to my question.”

“Took the easy path he did,” Yoda declared, stooped back straightening as far as it could “Wanted power he did, so the Dark Side he allowed to consume him.”

“Power?” Shmi demanded, her own spine straightening “What kind of power?”

He looked confused, “Understand you I do not.”

“My Ani would never want power simply for its own sake. He was raised to be practical with all things. So I ask again Jedi Master Yoda, what was it _for_?"

Yoda huffed “Your son he is. But had him for nine years only you did. Change people do.”

Shmi allowed her anger to come now. She was no longer a slave, she no longer had to bow and scrape, and watch every moment and thought. If he killed her, she would die free, and that was more than she ever thought she would get in this life. “Yes,” she said, voice low “they do change. My question to you is how my nine year old son, who was generous to a fault, loyal, and loving, became that twisted dark shell, who _enslaved_ himself to another master.”

She leaned forward so that she was almost nose to nose with Yoda. Since she had arrived here, in this time, she had been buffeted by pain and confusion, anchored only by Luke. Here, at last, was someone who had the answers to her questions. And by all the water that was on Tatooine, he would tell them _all_ to her “What did your precious Jedi Order do to _my son_?” she demanded.


End file.
